This course is an intensive writing workshop designed to teach the basic elements of news writing and reporting. You will learn specific skills, including reporting and interviewing from a diverse and multicultural perspective, hard news and feature writing, as well as writing on deadline and using social media to research and report stories, reach a wider audience and promote your work. You will critique each other and learn through the process of writing and rewriting. You will also gain insight into the ethical and legal issues confronting today’s journalists.

Each of you will create your own online domain and set up social media accounts that you don’t have already (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, etc.) to establish a digital identity and a personal cyber-infrastructure where you will publish your work. By creating your own website and social media identity, you will be preparing yourself for digital citizenship and learning about the best practices for digital publication. We will also have a class website, our own Twitter hashtag and an Instagram account, which will help turn this course into an open, networked community.